When Greece emerged from a European Union summit two weeks ago with the blueprint for a joint euro-zone and International Monetary Fund package tucked in its back pocket, many hoped the plan would stay exactly that: a plan. But soaring yields and fear of contagion to the banking sector have raised the chances Greece will have to call for concrete aid.

From corporate advisers to cloistered emperors, powerful counselors have been a part of Japanese culture for a millennium. Applied to the nation’s companies, though, this tradition is proving problematic.

British Airways and Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España have taxied a bit further down the merger runway. But Thursday’s definitive merger agreement brings little extra definition to a tie-up nearly two years in the making.

“I was just in the neighbourhood; thought I’d say hi.” Tim Geithner’s lightning visit to Beijing, via Mumbai and Hong Kong, is undeniably good news for the G2. It suggests that the US and China are moving from confrontation to co-ordination, not least on the vexed issue of the renminbi – the ostensible focus of the US Treasury secretary’s talks on Thursday evening with Chinese vice-premier Wang Qishan, in charge of trade and financial affairs. Even without Mr Geithner’s urgings, though, there are signs that action on the currency is on the cards.

The mergers and acquisitions boom last decade was a debt-fuelled extravaganza. But just as important as banks’ willingness to offer a cheap loan to almost anyone who asked, was their ability to supposedly offload that risk. Collateralised loan obligations were the tool of choice. CLOs are a parcel of mainly business loans – many granted to private equity groups – sold to investors. During the credit crunch they became a depth charge and the quickest way to sink a bank’s share price.

General Motors’ new chief financial officer, Chris Liddell, exhibited a sort of media savvy that has long been lacking at the troubled carmaker. It is fine to accentuate the positive so long as one does not set expectations too high. So, though he did not promise a profitable 2010, it seems a safe bet.

The usual debate is under way over whether the activist shareholders camped on its lawn pushed TNT of the Netherlands into a strategy shift or – as Europe’s second-largest mail and delivery company naturally claims – it was already moving in that direction. Either way, considering a partial listing or initial public offering of the sluggish domestic mail division, as well as looking for partnerships, is the right step.

Consolidation is in the air – and so it should be in an industry the International Air Transport Association expects to lose $2.8bn this year. As British Airways and Iberia ink the agreement on their mergerclearing it for takeoff by year-end, another deal is reportedly taxiing towards the runway across the Atlantic. BA and its Spanish partner will merge to create Europe’s third-largest airline company, behind serial consolidator Air France-KLM. BA’s shareholders will hold 55 per cent of unimaginatively-named International Airlines Group, Iberia’s the remainder. Both brands will be retained. At least the loss-making duo has merged while still solvent: in the US, where United Airlines and US Airways have resuscitated merger talks, the carriers have each tasted bankruptcy protection.

As the spectre of a hung parliament looms over the market, equity investors are having to cast their minds back to February 1974, the last time Britain was confronted with such an election outcome. During the three months after that election, the FTSE all-share index fell by 18.6 per cent, although this may have had as much to do with the stagflation that dogged the UK that year as any political uncertainty. It fell by 40.6 per cent in the six months after the election.

Do politics and business mix? The 81 business leaders who have now backed last week’s letter to The Daily Telegraph supporting George Osborne’s policy to reverse Labour’s National Insurance hike are about to find out.

Let us hope this is not a taste of what is to come from a merged British Airways and Iberia. When the agreement between the two finally touched down yesterday it was more than a week late, with the airlines having originally set 31 March as the deadline for signing the deal.

Here Is an idea for Alistair Darling, or his successor. So anxious is the National Bank of Greece, the country’s largest bank, about the parlous state of the public finances that it has launched an appeal to patriots. The bank now operates a “Solidarity Account”, into which members of the public can make deposits to help pay off Greece’s debts (those members of the public who aren’t on their knees thanks to the Greeks’ austerity measures).

Farewell scrappage, which ended last week and helped to produce a 27 per cent increase in car sales during March, according to data yesterday. Almost half of that rise was down to the scheme: without scrappage, sales growth in February would have been only 14 per cent.

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